Month: October 2002
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Fritz's Hit List #19
Today on Fritz’s Hit List: audio greeting cards. Greeting cards of this type either play a prerecorded audio track, or record an audio track for later playback. Because the recorded track is stored in digital form, these cards qualify for regulation as “digital media devices” under the Hollings CBDTPA. If the CBDTPA passes, any newly…
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Seth Schoen Makes a Doubleplusgood Point
Following up on Arnold Kling’s observation about non-general-purpose languages, Seth Schoen reminds us that Orwell’s 1984 featured a language called “Newspeak,” in which it was supposedly impossible to express subversive thoughts. Seth offers this quote from 1984: Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc,…
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Kling: The Fallacy of the Almost-General-Purpose Language
In a previous posting, “The Fallacy of the Almost-General-Purpose Computer,” I asked readers for help in finding a way to explain to non-techies why non-general-purpose computers are so vastly inferior to general-purpose ones. Many readers responded with good suggestions. But Arnold Kling’s explanation is by far the best: Trying to design a limited-purpose computer is…
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Fritz's Hit List #18
Today on Fritz’s Hit List: the Kung Fu Fighting Hamster. This six-inch hamster doll dances, swings a tiny nunchuck, and sings “Kung Fu Fighting” in an annoying voice. Because it plays a copyrighted recording (presumably from digital storage), it qualifies for regulation as a “digital media device” under the Hollings CBDTPA. If the CBDTPA passes,…
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Report from Agenda 2003
Dan Gillmor notes my posting on almost-general-purpose computers, and says Felten would have been rolling his eyes yesterday at the Agenda 2003 conference, where three members of the Hollywood establishment proved their absolute cluelessness about technology while confirming the prevailing Washington “wisdom” – the notion that we can somehow stop one kind of copying without…
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Washington Post on Tech Regulation
Today’s Washington Post quotes Fred von Lohmann of the EFF as saying that putting Hollywood in charge of technological progress would be like “putting the dinosaurs in charge of evolution.” The Post article also includes this artfully constructed paragraph: Hollywood wants to add a “digital flag,” or identifier, to coming digital television broadcasts, that would…
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Don't Blame "The Government"
Some people have interpreted my previous posting, “The Fallacy of the Almost-General-Purpose Computer” as saying that the U.S. government views general-purpose computers as a threat. That’s not quite what I meant to say. What I meant to say was that in Washington law/policy/lobbyist circles, the proposition that general-purpose computers might be too dangerous is now…
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Fritz's Hit List #17
Today on Fritz’s Hit List: digital aircraft intercoms. These devices, which let the pilot or co-pilot of an aircraft speak to passengers, qualify for regulation as “digital media devices” under the Hollings CBDTPA. If the CBDTPA passes, any newly manufactured digital aircraft intercoms will have to incorporate government-approved copy restriction technology. Fight piracy – regulate…
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The Fallacy of the Almost-General-Purpose Computer
I was at a conference in Washington, DC on Friday and Saturday. Participants included some people who are reasonably plugged in to the Washington political process. I was stunned to hear one of these folks sum up the Washington conventional wisdom like this: “The political dialog today is that the general purpose computer is a…
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Fritz's Hit List #16
Today on Fritz’s Hit List: talking pill bottles. These pill bottles, designed as an aid to visually impaired patients, play a recorded audio message to identify themselves, so they qualify for regulation as “digital media devices” under the Hollings CBDTPA. If the CBDTPA passes, any newly manufactured talking pill bottles will have to incorporate government-approved…